February 118:30 p.m.

Hotspur describes this tension, this tension of imminent
conflict, this tightening within, this coiling for effort,
for action. "And here draw I a sword," he says, "whose
temper I intend to stain with the best blood that I can meet
withal in the adventure of this perilous day." I finished
that scene, appropriately--that one of Hotspur's preparation
for battle with King Henry--just as my bus rolled over the
last shoulder of the surrounding volcanoes and began winding
its way down into the Valley of Anahuác, down into Mexico
City. By no means do I face an adventure akin to war here.
But I did feel a tension, a tightening, a coiling as I
advanced. It is energizing to have this vast urban site grow
up around you, electrifying. You cannot be but stimulated.
Once the stimulation cowed me. After repeated exposure,
however, and one three-month stay, the stimulation now
invigors. It is giddy jitters I feel: for reacquaintanceship
with a place so forbidding, so daunting, so awful as this
place. The tension comes from having to weather it, having
to weather its labyrinth of pitfalls and dangers, to weather
its crush of bodies, its crush of humans, to weather its
teeming wriggling crush of humans.

The taxi from the bus station delivered me to the second
seediest hotel I've ever rented. The only seedier was one in
San Luis Potosí, one with a single bare light bulb, with no
shower, with prostitutes loitering in the courtyard. But in
San Luis Potosí I stayed only one night. Here, if the street
noise permits, I will reside fifteen nights. I dropped my
green bag at entering my room to find a vial of genital
lubrication on the orange chair. I turned on the television
hanging from the ceiling to find non-stop pornographic movies
for free on channel 10. The largest furnishing in the room
is an immense mirror above the bed. And though cliche, it is
true, I opened the drapes to find that the hotel's neon sign
bathes my room in a pink glow. When I paid for my key at the
counter the girl behind the counter stood behind bullet proof
glass. That girl behind that counter had no front teeth.
But even sordid, this hotel is much more comfortable than
many places I've stayed. Full firm bed. Window. A
television. And I would endure much seamier surroundings for
the hotel's price and location. It charges substantially
less than I budgeted, and lies within walking distance of
most of the settings I need to examine. Buenavista, it's on.
Very near the Monument to the Revolution. I arrived just
after dark.

I dine now in a Sanborns. Walking north from my hotel,
I hung to the left at the Monument to the Revolution,
continued on a noisy couple of kilometers, and planted myself
finally before a splendid entrée: Wedges of tortilla fried
with chicken under green chile sauce, white cheese and cream.
Chilaquiles verdes, it's called. This restaurant prepares it
like no other. So liberal they are with their cheese! And
the coffee! Excellent! Since last night I've consumed only
half a kilo of tortillas. Famished, I was. And this my
favorite Mexican dish. There is no better way to enjoy your
favorite Mexican dish than after a long day's fast.

When I lived in San Antonio I once took a three-day trip
to Monterrey. There, in a Sanborns, from a round table, I
ordered chilaquiles verdes with coffee. When I lived in El
Paso I often bicycled across the Bridge of the Americas to
the Ciudad Juárez Sanborns. There, too, at a round table, I
would consume this dish with a coffee. And from San Diego I
regularly made my way to one of several Tijuana Sanborns.
Always coffee in them, sometimes chilaquiles verdes,
sometimes molletes. Sanborns is an upscale family
restaurant, a family restaurant with succulent food, with
rich coffee, with willing service. It is truly a Mexican
institution. They are ubiquitous.

I will not work tomorrow. I need a break. I have not
taken a break since I left San Antonio. I do not want to burn
out early. I wonder if I can go without scribbling one of
these entries tomorrow. I've grown accustomed to them. I'm
contemplating a pilgrimage to the Basilica of Guadalupe, or
to Teotihuacán, or to that showing of the Old Masters.

So, stepping out of the Puebla bus terminal, I promptly
stepped onto the wrong city bus. I don't know why. How
simple it is to take a bus to the center of any town from its
bus station! Always there is a bus that says "Centro." All
you do is board that bus that says "Centro" and wait for the
steeples of the central square to rise. I even suspected my
mistake. For the bus did not say "Centro" on it. But, as an
engine near me fired up, as the driver was about to gas away,
I quite spontaneously leaned through the folded door and
asked the driver, "Do you go to the centro?" His heavy
mustache acknowledged that he did go to the centro; and so,
ignoring my suspicions to the contrary, I boarded. Why would
a driver mislead me? I was confident he knew better than I.

As we rumbled through the Cholula centro, and I realized
my mistake, I could have deboarded. I could have deboarded
there and bussed back to the main terminal, or to the Puebla
centro from Cholula. Or, I might even have checked into a
hotel room there in Cholula. It is nearby Puebla, you know, a
very suburb. But the bus was tight to the rivets with
standing passengers and I had my cumbrous green bag and I did
not feel like banging my way through. So I just sat. I sat
and I sat and I rode the bus until the paved roads were
behind us, until we were a good thirty minutes beyond the
paved roads behind us. Acuexcomác, I think, was the name of
the few country shacks, the graveyard, the church where the
bus finally stopped. The driver killed the engine. Only
three passengers remained. He turned to me laughingly: "Did
you fall asleep?"

"I was just watching things," I answered. I had already
passed through my stage of fury. I had already arrived at my
comfortable resignation.

The other two passengers, a middle-aged couple, smiled
big-eyed at me as doorward they moved. They chuckled.

As I stood then between the graveyard and the church, as
the mustachioed driver smoked then his cigarette and watched
a mangy dog, I suddenly realized I did not really need to
tour Puebla. I had envisioned a Puebla neighborhood I know
as a model for another in the north of the country. I was
going to gauge my unfinished novel against this model because
I do not think I can get to that northern neighborhood. It's
too remote. I decided to give up on Puebla. I decided then
to simply add a day to my stay in Hermosillo. I will try to
get to the actual neighborhood, to the town of San Miguel de
Horcasitas.

By the time the driver finished his cigarette, turned
the bus round and accepted my fare, the answer to his
question of, "Cholula?" was "No, el CAPO."

"La CAPO?" he asked, surprised by my answer, correcting
the gender I had given the bus station.

"Sí," I said without explanation.

If I continued on right away, I thought, I could still
get to Mexico City by dark, which I did. And continuing on
right away, I calculated, bought me two days that I could
utilize elsewhere. I will add one of these days to my stay
in Hermosillo, of course. The other I will add either to my
time in Mazatlán, or to these days here in Mexico City.

So, stepping out of the Puebla bus terminal, I promptly
stepped into a tour of its most distant purlieus. I never
even set foot in the city itself. I saw a lot of churches
though. Big pretty ones. If I were a painter or a
photographer I think I might live in that backwater awhile.

As I leaned out of the window of my hotel room earlier,
before walking to this Sanborns, I recognized suddenly the
grandness of Mexico City. Geographically it covers a
virtually inconceivable expanse. And its churches are
monumental. And its monuments dwarf everything within sight.
Even its art is big, in murals. And its poverty, of course.
Its wealth. The noise. You behold the city and you get the
feeling that it has grown beyond the control of the those
managing it; or, that it has been allowed by those managing
it the freedom to grow beyond their control. Is allowing
such a freedom advisable? And would such a loose grip come
from confidence? From philosophy? From inattentiveness?
From fate? Where else will you find a nine-lane one way
street? No stripes are painted on that street. No median
for the scurrying pedestrians. Mexico City is like an
overflowing river, or a volcanic eruption. Its monstrousness
suggests an act of god. I thought all of this as I leaned
out of my window into the pink neon glow of the hotel sign
and looked down Buenavista to the Monument to the Revolution.
What role does control play in the growth of something so
awesome, so voluminous? Or maybe the question is: When does
control transform itself from a healthy guiding of something
into an unhealthy confining of something? In other words,
when is it best to restrain, and when is it best to allow?
Where is the balance? For I really think there had to be
some point where Wagner stopped leading the operas and let
the operas lead him. But there also had to be a point where
he drew the operas back into his control, where he curtailed
their tendency to grow and flourish outward and on like some
arrant tendril of vine. There is a point, I think, where it
is best to let a thing be as it will and grow on without
interference. But there is also a point where this weakens
the thing growing. Where are these points? Are they the same
point? There is no making of great art without finding that
balance, I think.